At work getting nothing accomplished. Hoping the day goes by quickly. After work, to the gym to take one step further away from the couch and closer to 5k.

I've loaded the van and am counting the minutes for my wife to get home so we can go to Missouri to see family and friends for Easter/my birthday/my friend's birthday. In celebration I am letting my son have the unhealthiest lunch ever.

I'm heading out of work in exactly 2 minutes to go to CVS to pick up more sleeping pills. Then, I'm heading back to the shithole to shower, do laundry, pack, write up a weekend to-do list, and find out when my brother wants to meet up. And then I'll probably take a nap.

research (RICO for work, Americorps for me, local business for my gala fundraiser committee), then meeting a friend for frozen yogurt, then desperately trying to get the house in order before Guy gets home.

Well, I just got back from taking photos of a fire. It's a building that is owned by a super-cheap absentee landlord. One of my neigbhorhood activist colleagues has 90 (offline) photos of code violations from two years ago including exposed wiring and rotted back steps. Looks like they made some cosmetic improvements but it remains to be seen whether the building was ever properly fixed up.

Being only marginally productive at work. (I'm waiting for feedback and further instructions from my producer.) After work, going to the grocery store, post office, and beer store. Then, home to get the dead battery out of my car and take it to the garage to have it recharged.

I'm eating leftover jicama, pear, arugula salad that was better fresh last night.
I am not trying hard enough to get things done at work, so I've just set a bunch of 30 min tasks for myself.
Tonight I'm going to my sister's for 2nd night of passover seder (last night was at my house).

At work, finishing up a bunch of little things before my vacation. Just have to make cryoprotectant, coverslip slides and check on my rats before I leave. Should take me about an hour all up.

Then I will go home, pick up the sproglet, play with her, feed her and get her to bed, then I'm playing bridge tonight. Really, I want to be out in the lovely weather.

Finishing a corset, hopefully getting a good start on another, and making tacos for dinner. mmm... tacos. I'll need to go to the store, though. I don't have any avocado on hand, and the only tomato is iffy looking.

I got home from work about an hour ago, and have tidied, dusted and vacuumed the living room and hall. I have a friend coming for lunch tomorrow, but still need to clean the kitchen. Before I go to bed tonight I'll wash the floors.

For lunch tomorrow I'm making the Barefoot Contessa's pea and mint soup, followed by roast lamb (studded with garlic and rosemary), served with herbed new potatoes, roasted asparagus and chanterey carrots, steamed broccoli and cauliflower. For dessert I have fresh raspberries and cream, and there's an assortment of cheeses for later on.

So this evening I'll be making the soup and then cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. If I have time, I'll watch American Idol (we get the performance show tonight and the results tomorrow).

Oh, and I have a phone date with my gorgeous boo.

1. Trying to figure out how to drive off geese that are making 4 sports fields at a school unplayable. There was going to be an article in the paper today, but maybe tomorrow. Goose poop has been found to contain a lot of e Coli, among other bad stuff.

2. Formulating a response to some aerial spraying for gypsy moth (BtK) what is occurring near 4 schools but not ON them, or even inside the buffer zone. The local activist community want us to treat this like the next Armageddon, but I am having trouble getting worked up by it, since Bt is pretty benign, and the chance of overspray onto our sites is pretty minimal. A lot of scared parents, though.

3. Using a Google pedometer to measure distances from the spray area. Hoping that it's fairly accurate.

1. Typing an obituary for a 55 year old man. Cancer, I think.

2. Waiting for my mom to get to the funeral home so that I can take her to lunch. I'm going to take her to a place that makes great shrimp poboys.

3. Preparing myself mentally to show a family this afternoon the body of their 21 year old daughter who was killed in an auto accident this Sunday morning on her way home from work.

ColdChef, have you read Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago? I am only about 20 pages in, but the premise of it is that one day, people just stop dying. It's an interesting book.

ColdChef, I've said it before, but your work tweets are just about the most fascinating internet reading I've found.

Trying to work out Summer Reading Club details, with occasional breaks to work on writing employee evaluations. Thinking about shrimp poboys.

ColdChef, have you read Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago?

I have not, but I will pick up a copy this afternoon at the library. Thanks for the suggestion.

Trying to get motivated on this work thing. It's not working.

Math homework to do tonight, a few anatomy points to clear up.

Socks to knit, dog to pet and kitties to scritch.

And now I'm drooling, thinking about shrimp poboys. ColdChef, you are cruel.

Might do my taxes tonight. Might.

Going to Maundy Thursday service, because I like the music.

Pondering the meaning of life.

Just finished dealing with 102 7th graders in batches of 30 or so as they went through the museum with a scavenger hunt and hit the gift shop with extreme prejudice. We have no rock candy left and the little geode keyrings are getting scarce. At least nobody pulled a sweaty 20 dollar bill out of their sneaker for me today (this actually happened yesterday. Eeesh!!) And 7th graders can mostly read and add and don't look like they're going to cry when you tell them they have to put something back because they only have $5 and they've just put $11 worth on the counter.

Boss just handed me PITA task that will take a while. Board meeting tonight; there will be a bunch more of these in the next three hours.

My potter friend is coming to the museum to teach a class on minerals in clay - and, incidentally, making stuff out of clay - to the Science Sisters (girls ages 8 - 11) in about an hour and a half. I will be taking photos.

Then after work I've got a DITLOA (day in the life of asheville photography project) admin meeting wherein we will formulate a mission statement and I will apologize for not having the poster done.

I'm going to be SO GLAD when this week is over.

Trying to clear out clients who have stopped showing up for scheduled appointments and yet do not have the courtesy to call and let me know if they plan to come back in the future, so that I can take on new clients rather than keeping these spaces open for the no-shows, and trying to figure out ways to schedule clients who keep canceling due to money/illness/anxiety issues but who *do* want to come back in the future in such a way as to reduce everyone's frustration and anxiety (and in such a way that I'm not dumping my frustration at clients in category one onto clients in category two).

Which basically means, making a lot of phone calls and leaving a lot of messages with very little hope that anyone will return them. Sigh.

I'm gonna watch part of the first round of The Masters before E and I meet a friend for dinner and then we're gonna go to opening night for the Birmingham Barons, the ass-kickingest AA team in the Southern League! And it's dollar Yuengling night! And cheap wing night! And free fridge magnets with the team schedule printed beneath a Jiffy-Lube ad night! And there's still a smoking section at the ballpark! And it's right next to the concession stand! Along the first base line! Anyone want some exclamation points! I have plenty!

I'm super pissed because the super-amazing house that I saw for sale last week ONE BLOCK from my girlies' school - that had an above ground pool, and was a really decent-looking older, all-brick 3 bedroom house, and was possibly EVEN AFFORDABLE once all the paperwork is done...has sold.

I'm so tired of limbo. I wanna be divorced and able to move on NOW.

[Deep breath]

Well, last night I paid my overdue PG&E bill by phone. It was only overdue one month, which is actually pretty good, for me. (Couldn't pay it last month since February is a short month, which means that the March paycheck is smallish.) But it turns out that it was actually overdue THREE MONTHS. Why? Because PG&E didn't bill me for two months running. Why? Because they installed a new "smart" meter in January (or December, I forget), except they installed these things before they had any way of reading them, so they couldn't bill me until -- hey!! -- the money was three months overdue! So the bill turned out to be three times the amount that I expected, and I had to wait for my rent check to clear before I paid it (because dealing with an antsy PG&E is better than dealing with a landlord who's pissed off because my rent check bounced), and the rent check didn't clear until yesterday.

So! I went to pay the bill online last night. Finished the process and looked it over and thought, hmm, that's weird, I thought my debit card number ended with ABCD, but it's showing up as ABCE. What's up with that? And it turned out that I had mistakenly paid by bank draft (before yesterday, I never realized that the last four digits of my debit/bank account numbers vary only by the 4th number). But when you pay by bank draft, it takes up to three days to process! And I needed to pay it by yesterday! So! I called and did the whole pay-by-phone thing and used my debit card and got a payment confirmation number (was holding my breath hoping hoping hoping that it would go through, and it sounded like it did since I got the payment ID).

So this basically means that I paid PG&E an exorbitant amount -- twice. I called them up this morning to ask them to cancel the initial takes-three-days payment (which won't go through now anyway, because if the debit payment actually went through, I don't have that much money). And while navigating through the phone menu, the recording tells me my balance, AND IT'S THE SAME OVERDUE BALANCE AS IT WAS LAST NIGHT!

Gah, so I don't know if the debit payment went through. (Even though it sounded like it did! I have a payment ID! I even wrote it down!) And I don't know if I still have power. So I'm headed home early afternoon to check on the latter. And if the house is dark, I have to figure out how to deal with the former. And all this taps into my very annoying anxiety issues around money, and it's making me feel like shit, and my mind is racing and I keep going through the possible contingency plans, and it's all making me very tired and scared and shaky.

And all this because they installed meters that they had no way of reading and so delayed billing me for the two coldest months of the year. "Smart" meter, indeed.

[Exhale.]

On preview: But I'm very happy that I don't have ColdChef's job, and in context, my problems aren't so big and are imminently solvable, so that's good.

I would like ColdChef's job, I think, well, the human part. Not sure about the science part.

Today I am flying from SF to Logan, then van shuttle up to New Hampshire to see my family. (Wave, wave, Miko.) I'm on line because it's Virgian America. I didn't really need to pay the $13, but, oh my god, I'm on line, on a plane!

I'm smiling a little because I've started a new relationship recently, an unexpected connection, after two years of contented spinster aunti-ness.

Claudia_SF...that sounds like a nice new little smile you've got there!

Eating popcorn, and watching America's Next Top Model. Mmmmmmmmmm.

I would like ColdChef's job, I think, well, the human part. Not sure about the science part.

Heh. All I do is the human part. No science parts for me, no sir. My brother and uncle do that. The shrimp poboys were indeed delicious and generous in their shrimpy goodness. The 21 year old's family will be here in less than an hour and my stomach hurts just anticipating it.

I'm training the new person at work, whom I'm very glad to welcome as she will be taking on one of the two jobs I currently do for the pay of only one.

I'm looking forward to going to the library this evening because I'm out of free reads.

Whuffles to you, mudpuppie. I wish I could bring you a bowl of soup and a kitten. You too, CC.

I had some bad news about money yesterday that was kinda stressing me (husbands parental leave benefits are running out sooner than I thought) but I figured money will come to me if I need it and if it doesn't come then I guess I really didn't need it. So I was pretty zen about about.

I took the children to the doctor, a new one since our's retired and he seems really nice and I feel good that I have crossed a small task off my list. Coming out of the office building (pretty much the only building in town that is four stories) there was a crisp $20 bill right in front of my car with no people or cars around. There was no one to give it back to (and no one in the building is security or anything) so I had a huge internal debate about what to do with it and decided I'm keeping it. After getting three children in the car I walk around to get in and there was ANOTHER crisp $20 right beside my door. It was a windy day too, but the bill was staying put. I think I am going to go buy a tree with the money in the hope it balances my karma.

I came home and napped, woke up to a completely clean home (made me wonder if hubby was getting into the speed) and I am slowly getting ready for work and to drop my eldest daughter at karate. After tonight I don't have to go to work again until Wednesday, and I will have a first birthday party with my youngest daughter on the weekend. We are all healthy and life is good.

I'm trying not to type much because my hands are kind of achey -- not from typing, but from a recent unprecedented cleaning binge.

Still, videlicet, it's hard to resist entirely. Plus I have some work work I really need to do.

The family of the 21 year old woman is in the chapel now. They're handling things much better than I would. Her mom is putting mascara on her and her dad is brushing her hair. It's such a beautiful thing that I started crying and I had to leave the room so as not to upset them.

My hands are tired, too, from a morning of guitar and an afternoon of frisbee; I expect an evening of console videogaming. I hope all this vigorous hand exercise won't prevent me from masturbating into the wee hours.

Thanks to the power of making a list the night before; I can usually go through teh workday without having to actually think.

Where is my W-2 letter to previous employer, laundry, foods/grocery, Sams Club, order cell fone (Samsung Alias) for Dad, work related research, and look at pictures of new tractor for teh fahm ranch.

Later load recycling into teh cah, plan out changing oil tomorrow, plan on visit to boss's tomorrow, and of course; ramp my cholesterol up with a meal of chips and guac.

ramp my cholesterol up with a meal of chips and guac

You know those ads and that packaging that say "100% Cholesterol-Free"? For those products that are entirely vegetable-based? I now know who that exciting claim is aimed at. So, thanks!

I was up early today, and spent the morning gardening. Hanging baskets done, last of the herbs planted, fingers crossed for an attempt at cukes in containers, dwarf gardenia (!) in a lovely terra cotta pot. Then figured out how to get the buildup of algae & pollen off the deck without a pressure washer or hands & knees-type scrubbing, so did that. Had yummy lunch of corn muffins and BOP's extraordinarily good tuna salad. Cleared kitchen floor of leaves and debris I had tracked in. Napped. Now I'm heading out for a cocktail on the lovely clean plant-filled deck, followed by dinner & baseball & good cheap beer mentioned above. All this has put me in a ridiculously good mood, and I wish I could give some of it to mudpuppie, whom I adore and who has been having a helluva time, from the sound of it.

*whuffles mudpuppie*

Travelling by train in preparation for spending Four Whole Days playing string quartets with a bunch of really nice people. It'll be tiring but awesome.

Scheduled a surgery for my dog's other knee for a week from Monday, which sucks. Jogged at lunch, about two miles, which also kinda sucked, but the weather was beautiful. "Worked." Reading "I'm Not Rappaport" which I was offerd to direct next season, it would just be so hard to cast. Seriously hard to cast. Any black or white male person of leisure reading this who wants to spend a few months in Richmond at your own expense and play an eighty year old in a great play, email me ASAP. More than willing to age you up. Will porbably watch "Survivor" tonight. Starting to think about dinner. Finish off the squash ravioli, I'm thinking. I've been having indulgent dinners, to my cost. Angsting in general.

I'm about to start one of my patented clean-ups of the kids' bedroom. I will start by literally throwing everything out the door except the furniture and they have to convince me why they get to put anything back. Everything else gets thrown out. My kids are pigs.

Also worrying about what is going to happen at work next week - big re-structure coming but nobody knows what is actually happening. It seems that my job is safe, as are all my staff, but my boss (and her boss and her boss's boss), not so much. At the very least, it's going to involve lots of worried people (especially those without permanent positions) traipsing through my office seeking reassurance that they can pay their mortgage next month. My boss will be on leave all week (as will her boss), so it will be all on my shoulders. I'll be stressing about it over the long weekend and all week until the announcement is made, then I'll be fine. I can deal with problems if I know what they look like, but the unknown scares the shit out of me.

It's 1.15pm and I'm still in bed, although I did get up, walk to the shop, purchase and prepare victuals before coming back to bed to eat said victuals. Avocado, spinach, mushrooms, tomato and onion cooked with dill, proper soft scrambled eggs and Polski rye toast. And great coffee. I'll get up again soon, maybe.

goo, if I leave you the avocado, can I have some of the rest? I woke up starving and now want to eat the screen that sounds soooo good.

Wow dg, good luck next week - that sounds horrible.

Well, I think I missed the guac and cholest.

The mister and I drove to Kamloops to visit his bro and s-i-l.

dg, mum told us to clean our rooms or she would and anything not where it belonged would be thrown away.

Heh, I've done that too - given them 60 minutes to clean up and then come in with the rubbish bin and thrown out everything that wasn't put away. Much crying and screaming and more crying later, they know when I say "clean up your room" I mean it. Then I'd dig through the bin while they weren't looking and retrieve anything valuable, then sneak it back into their room.

- bath
- waffles, fruit smoothie, espresso
- block of writing (different from writer's block... usually)
- noodle around online (currently)
- walk down to art supply store, buy cardstock
- go to [out-of-town person's] house, feed cat, play with cat
- library, return books, research, notes
- finish printing vellum inserts for wedding invitations, affix to invitations
- seal and address and stamp second half of invitations
- mail wedding invitations, yikes and yippee! That idea makes my heart pound so fast. Wait, maybe that's the espresso.
- more research, reading, notes
- possibly: make tortillas for tonight's dinner (which will be something or other to use up the ripe avocado sitting on the shelf)
- definitely: tidy up kitchen, study
- ideally: sweep and scrub kitchen, which is looking pretty vile
- unlikely: do laundry, also see above sweep & scrub